Show Me The Money

Owen Patterson, what a fine upstanding man, now he’s out of government he can finally tell the truth.

That is of course, the truth according to the richest, most influential lobby group the human race has ever been confronted with.

They work together, they have a bottomless pit of funds and of course, they are aggressive because they have an enormous amount to lose.

Am I talking about the vicious communist cabal of green environmentalist Clarkson baiting bully girls who claim to know everything and who gave the recently sacked ‘Environment’ Minister such a hard time?

Am I talking about, to quote Mr Paterson, the “mutually supportive network of environmental pressure groups, renewable energy companies and some public officials who keep each other well supplied with lavish funds, scare stories and green tape.”

No, I’m not.

I’m talking about the multi-billion, multi-national hydrocarbon industry who quietly pump gargantuan funds through our political system through lobbying and lavish expense accounts to support ‘charities’ like Lord Nigel Lawson’s laughable ‘Global Warming Policy Foundation.’

Well, laughable if it wasn’t so incredibly well funded and powerful and has the inside track to the powers that be and is clearly having a great deal of success.

Who gave Paterson a very lucrative speaking gig the moment he got the boot from the Cameron Cabinet, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, quelle surprise.

Restoring balance and trust to the climate debate. Doesn't that make you feel safe and reassured.

Nothing new really, Paterson has been their best spokesman for the entire time he was in the cabinet.

Just a quick side-note. Lawson and his henchmen will not reveal where the funding for this ‘charity’ comes from. In fact it’s so well dodgy that their charitable status has recently been withdrawn

So let’s just step back from the heated debate for a moment, not get emotional about it and have a look at the two groups opposing each other on this jolly old energy matrix - climate change debate.

On one side you have the world's, indeed the wealthiest corporations in all human history. Forget Apple and Google, the really big money is still in fossils.

These are the chaps who extract hydrocarbons, ship, refine them and sell them.

They make massive profits for themselves and their many and varied shareholders including many of us with pensions.

They support the civilised world as we know it, their work, and I’m not being funny, their work is vital.

We are all utterly reliant on the job they do.

If they didn’t extract oil we wouldn’t have computers, phones, cars, medicines, roads and millions of other things because they not only make petrol, diesel and aviation fuel, they also produce plastics, pharmaceuticals and fertilizers.

They also produce all the world’s hydrogen for ‘clean’ hydrogen fuel cell cars but that’s another issue.

So that’s one side, I think we can all agree, no matter what our opinion or outlook, these corporations are likely to be keen to maintain the status quo, make sure they can still operate and make money and are capable and prepared to spend big to undermine any negative influence on their activities.

On the other side you have a ragbag of pressure groups, governmental organisations, university departments, very small energy companies, opinion formers and local activists.

Now, I read through that list and I’m not seeing big money.

I’m not seeing powerful executives with massive off shore bank accounts and the ability to bully, bribe, cajole, threaten and pester world leaders.

I’m seeing a bloke with a sign outside a coal burning power plant, a woman with a sign outside an oil company headquarters.

I’m seeing students shouting about drilling for oil in the arctic, or local people challenging the fracking companies, the tar sands projects, the more and more drastic efforts the hydrocarbon industry are having to use to keep the oil flowing.

So when Owen Paterson, his paymaster Nige Lawson and their sweaty cabal of loud mouth right wing nut bags tell you things like ‘renewable energy just isn’t viable,’ I merely want to suggest that we should consider whos beneftting from this successful doubt sowing campaign.

Say it enough times, as Fox News understands in the USA, say it enough times and people will believe you.